


Gift of the Flames

by Grond



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angband, Blacksmithing, Control, Crafts, Creation, Dark Lord Antics, Darkness, Fire, First Age, Gen, Gift Giving, Jewelry, Master & Servant, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationships, Reunions, Servants, Silmarils, The Master Has Issues, Villains, arts and crafts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27970175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grond/pseuds/Grond
Summary: Mairon's lord has finally returned to Middle-earth. There's crucial work to be done, but Mairon is equal to the task. All it takes is heat, the power of a Maia, and the great skill he undeniably has… to make his Lord a gift—and help Melkor extricate himself from the new dilemma he's saddled himself with.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor & Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24
Collections: Tolkien Secret Santa 2020 ADVENT CALENDAR





	Gift of the Flames

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Tolkien Secret Santa's Advent Calendar 2020, Day 9: Baking. Illustrations can be found [here](https://foxleycrow.tumblr.com/post/637022165879898112/tolkien-secret-santa-advent-calendar-day-9-baking).
> 
> Probably the kind of seasonal fic you'd expect from a writer called "Grond".

It starts with heat. That is the necessity. Fire needs air and heat to come into being. Air surrounds us, and I create the heat. One last thing is needed, and that is the fuel. I myself am both the fuel and the fire. I burn. The air around me burns. I raise my hand, and fire blooms like a flower on my palm. Expanding, the flame-flower becomes a garden. A garden to consume all gardens.

Fire can warm, or destroy. Most use it for its basic properties, the extremities of weakness and strength. True skill lies everywhere in between: the subtleties, the multiplicities. The versatility. In the hands of a master, the uses of fire are unspeakably vast. I do not need to hesitate or wonder what I might do with my flame. It does what I will it to do, and it always has. It spreads and sings for me.

My forge is the heart of Angband, its greatest source of heat and rhythm. The fortress as a whole belongs to my master, but I reign here in the center, in this bright place. Lord Melkor's mode of creation is colder and more chaotic. Chaos has a strictly limited place in a forge, in _my_ forge. In some ways, Melkor's methods and mine are fundamentally at odds, though we can work in unison, when the need and his mood are right. 

It does not matter whether my master is here—my works are his works. That is the nature of our bond. Lord Melkor is not present, but Lord Melkor is the subject of my thought and action. What I make here now, I make for him. Isn't that always so? When he was absent, my thoughts and labors yet turned toward him. Now that he has returned to our shores, that has not changed; it has become more pressing. I am fully aware of his wishes again. They move through me, not unlike the way breath or blood move through creatures of flesh. I would be aware of them without thinking, but I never stop thinking.

First, I smelt the ore. It has been mined in the impossible depths beneath our fortress. In the midst of the bright fire, iron blooms from the ore: recognizably itself, but rough and imperfect. It must be refined. With pressure and heat. With the strike of my hammer. The stress I place on it will make it stronger. Then more heat. More pressure. Again and again. My anvil is broad and dark, and the strike of my hammer against it reverberates through the halls and caverns, so all can know I am at work. Beneath my hammer, the metal takes shape. It twists and curls like a live thing. It curves its back and sends out spines. With my fire all through it, it too becomes subject to my will.

Its shape is pleasing to me, but is designed for another and with another's tastes in mind, so I leave some aspects of it unrefined. It rises in spires, not unlike towers—but the whole is not a tower. It is a ring. When it cools, I heat it again. I will not rest until its form is perfected.

Once I am satisfied with the shape, my task remains unfinished. I must anneal the iron, to give it the precise texture and hardness I wish it to have. It is iron, but it will become _my_ iron—any metal I have worked becomes stronger than its original nature allows. Less brittle, more enduring. Reaching out with my mind to the metal, I can sense its least impurity, the other elements it is combined with, every aspect of its being.

It is time for the ovens. The great weight of what I have made is moved by my mind alone into the depths. The ovens of Angband have contained centuries of fire, but they endure, because I made them. They are loyal, and know what I wish. I set another fire. This one does not touch the metal directly, but heats it nonetheless.

I stand still, facing the light. An observer might assume I am idle, but I am doing everything. I watch the metal glow, heating slowly, temperature rising steadily. I will know exactly when the desired point is reached. In these moments, my mind is consumed by the essence of the metal. It is from the most basic elements that all great works arise, and it is upon them that the quality of the result rests. Even the finest crafter may be hindered by poor materials. 

This will be a great work. It must be. I will make the metal pure. Not in the sense of being purely iron, for iron needs added elements or it will be too soft. No, what I must do is make it free of corruption. I must purify it even of myself. I must burn away everything that is not needed. This will be an innocent metal, but an enduring one. The secret lies in the long heat, the slow heat, to make the particles of the metal sing. I can do this. I hear the metal raise its voice. 

To the Valar isolated in Valinor, I am lost, corrupted, fallen. In my estimation, I am stronger than I ever was—I can yet hear the music in the bones of the earth and in the core of the metal. I can hear the chorus, and I can direct it. The metal sings and dances for me, becoming not only itself, but something other: a new kind of iron that will withstand any assault. It will not be crumbled by my master's corrosive nature, and even the greatest goodness will not scratch its surface. It will be neutral, and it will be astounding. It is mine. _There—!_ A subtle shift in the essence of the metal. That is hot enough, and so, long enough. I put the fire out.

The air here smells of smoke and iron. I am alone here. No one disturbs me when I am at work. If I needed assistance, I would command it. Nothing is needed here but my skill and my patience. I waited millennia for my master's return. To wait this much longer is nothing.

This is what it means to master heat. To understand time. To wait. Inaction can be the best course of action. For once the iron is heated, then it must cool, at the correct rate to teach it to infallibly sing the song I have prepared for it. As it cools, I am within it, as my master is within me. I flow between the particles that make it up, regulating its heat, shaping its structure. An Elf could not do this. Yes, I very much doubt an Elf could do this.

When the same awareness that informed me the heating was done tells me the slow cooling has finished, I take up my work again. One more act remains. I raise up the metal high, above my head, and I cast it down—into the quenching pool to my left, chilled by my master's searing ice. I am heat, but his cold runs all through this realm. He is here, a part of this process, as he is with me. My master. What I make, I make for him. I make with him. That is what it means to be a Maia.

All is ready for him now.

He waits, on his dark throne. I made this throne as well. Upon it, he is a tower of shadow, pulsating with darkness. In the lightless expanse of Angband's depths, he stands out sharply to my eyes, darker than the natural darkness. Around him lie a number of the Valaraukar, who give off their own flickering light. Their fire does not so much illuminate as cast our Lord Melkor into deeper shadow and make his darkness look the greater for it. 

Long long ago, in the depths of the fastness of Utumno, my forge and I were ever the brightest points. That is not the case now and here. Angband is not Utumno. My master has changed. I do not know what altered him more: the long years of captivity, or the blazing jewels in his hands. Those gems burn with a fire such as I have not seen before. 

The sight of them fills me with yearning in the first moment, and anger in the second. I feel the pull they have on my spirit, and I like it not. I understand what they are—better than the other Maiar could. They are the work of another smith, and when I look upon them I can guess at the intent and the greatness that created them.

Like my iron, these jewels were treated to an impossibly powerful heat, hotter than any ordinary fire, the heat that only a soul can produce. They too were annealed, heated until anything impure, anything unwanted, had been burned away. I understand the basic method of their creation, but the details elude me. I do not know how he did it, that Elf—how did he give his spirit physical form, twine it with light, and heat it until both spirit and light grew stronger and brighter? How could he perfect a technique I have not dreamed of? I have worked for so many more centuries than any Elf. I have existed since the beginning, since before the world was made.

I see the desire in my master's eyes as he looks upon the jewels, but I do not feel that desire echoed in myself. Why would I want these objects I have not made? They are not tempting so much as galling. When my master looks from the jewels to me, I see the suspicion in his dark gaze, and I know what he suspects me of. I am the greatest of his Maiar, and the nearest to him in strength. I am therefore, not only his greatest aid, but the greatest threat to him. He is weakened by his battle with the great Spider. The Valaraukar are also weakened, though satisfied with themselves in the wake of their victory against Ungoliant, tongues of flame lolling from their mouths, sparks spilling from their eyes. They served their lord well, and so have I.

Is there a chance I could overpower him? Unlikely, but in this moment, I have the greatest chance I ever have had or likely will have. It is enough to make him look at me like that, but as I analyze the situation, I know I will never betray him. It does not matter what state he is in. He will never fully understand a Maia. He does not know what it means to serve. No Vala understands the Maiar so little, because he corrupted so many of us and believes we can betray him in turn, as we betrayed our old masters. Yet a Maia who chose their master of their own will, over all others, as I did, is more loyal than any. No one is more loyal.

I ignore the suspicion in his eyes. "My lord, you cannot continue to hold those in your hands." I will not name the jewels.

"Yet I wish to hold them, Mairon." _The tone in which he says my name_. His grip on the jewels tightens. No matter how tightly he grips, the light of those gems pours endlessly from between his fingers, like water escaping from cupped hands. His darkness cannot engulf them or shadow them.

Melkor sees his desire as law, but this is not new to me. No matter how long he was gone, this is not a trait that was altered, yet I spoke truly, and he cannot continue to hold them. Where his long fingers are curled, I see the damage to his flesh—that is his spirit—that is his flesh. As the jewels were formed by long exposure to heat, they expose my master's being to the same heat. They are alien to him, forged by a force that hates him, rails against his existence, and would erase him. I would not say the jewels have a mind, but they do have a heart. They do not _know_ , but they feel.

 _They know only one lord,_ I think, but I will never say it. I would create a thing like those jewels. I long to, and I wonder how I could. I cannot ask their Elf creator. 

"I know what you wish, to have them with you always." I cannot say, _They are harming you_ , for he would take such acknowledgement that he can be injured as an affront. He would not admit to any weakness. In some ways, he is foolish, my master. I will not say that, either. "That is why I have made this for you." 

I gesture, and the crown of iron emerges from the shadows, drawn and lifted by my power. The crown is all black, all sharp, all matte. It comes into contact with the light of the jewels, but it does not reflect them. Light disappears into its surface. I took all the light out of it for him. I made it so he would desire it. I made it to hold the jewels. Three sets of grasping iron claws rise from it, each one eager to clench and not let go. These jewels must be held fast. They have a wish of their own, as strange as that idea is.

My master's will is my greater concern. My master is skeptical, but he wants all things fine. All things that are unique. No one else has a crown such as this: iron with a purity that gives it a shape so distinct, and yet a hardness that exceeds any other iron. I see him watch it. And I wish—briefly, I wish it could replace the jewels in his desire for it, but that will not be so. And yet—he does relinquish his grip the slightest amount. I can better see the damage to his hands, where the darkness of him has grown—not darker—but more brittle. Not as sinuous and flowing as before. It looks almost as if it might crack, where the jewels have touched him. How can the work of an Elf have made such a mark?

"You will wear them as is your right, for you are Lord." Lord of the jewels, lord of this place, lord of disorder—lord of all things, in time.

His grip loosens further, as he shifts the jewels into one great hand. With his other hand, now freed, he reaches for his crown. I raise it for him, with a flicker of thought. The Valaraukar nearest me lifts its head, flame-eyes sparking. We understand each other immediately. We are of the same kind: of fire.

My lord looks at me and sees me truly, for the first time since his return. There is no bond like that of a Maia and Vala. I know that better than most, having cast off one such bond to gain another. I know the pain of it. The all-consuming nature of it. I know when he looks at me what he thinks, because he allows me to know. "Mairon," he says again, and his tone is fonder than before. He takes up the crown I have made, judging it fit for himself. With a quick, sure movement of his great, dark hands, he fits the jewels into the places I have made for them.

The jewels do not burn the crown. There is nothing corrupt in my making, only the materials I found in the earth and shaped with my heat, my will, and my magic. The crown does not corrode at my lord's touch, because I altered it to withstand him, to take in his shadow and be the stronger for it. "Clever Mairon," my lord says. He sets the iron crown upon his head. "You always know what needs to be done."

"I do, my lord." No sense in modesty between us; neither of us have ever been modest.

"I have felt the lack of your council."

I look him over. "I do not doubt it."

My lord's laughter is loud as cracking thunder and as silent as the shadows. "We have much to do. I have put so many into such a fury."

"I do not doubt it," I say again, and I move forward. He holds out his hands to me, sensing my intent, and I sigh when I see the damage. "Look what you have done to yourself." I can speak a little more easily. Relief moves through me. My lord is changed, but he has not changed so much that I do not recognize him, or that I cannot communicate with him as I once did. The ancient, familiar, dark humor flows from him into me. 

"I must give you ample work to do, or else you would grow bored," says Lord Melkor. 

He is right. Perhaps he should not say it, but that has never stopped him. He cannot be stopped. I settle my hands upon his. I send my fire through his darkness. It is his fire, because I gave it to him. How strange—what kind of wound is this the jewels have made in one who was never hurt before? What new disturbances has my lord brought into our fastness? I suspect already that the damage he suffered cannot be fully repaired, but there is no task I will shy from. Every time I complete one, my lord has another waiting. If each one is more difficult than the last, then so be it. I made my choice. I would not be where I was if I did not enjoy challenges.

As I have for so many millennia, I pour my power into him. My flame is my will, and the uses of heat are numberless. His wounds are not healed, but they diminish. His darkness grows. Above us, the jewels shine like stars, but I barely see them. My hands are bright, but my eyes are on the darkness.


End file.
